I didn’t blog about this before because I was still in the audition stages, but I am now able to talk about it.
I went for an audition for a new BBC1 show called “New Brands” after my application form was accepted. It’s sort of an after-Dragons-Den style programme where you get to pitch to a high street store and make your business big and successful. I felt I was in quite an exclusive club at this point and excited because I thought it was quite an exclusive thing to get through to the interview stage. Apparently not. After a long and expensive trip to Manchester and booking a day off work, it turns out there would have been 50 people auditioning on the same day, plus other auditions going on before and after mine on other days. Suddenly it felt less exclusive.
I was cheered up though that I thought I gave some great answers to the questions, and I had a better product than the examples I had sent over, the process lends itself to batch manufacturer and the programme was to be hosted by Jo Malone, who started off in the handmade market herself, so would be sympathetic to my craft. Today I got an e-mail that had clearly been torn apart by my spam filter as it had 10,000 garbled characters before the line, “You have been unsuccessful”.
At this point you’d think I would be overwhelmingly disappointed, but I think I had believed I would fail all along. The odds were stacked against me and I realised this before I did my piece to camera. Most other people were demonstrating a food product, or were design students and I somehow didn’t fit in with my lack of formal training and general household items. And getting a mass e-mail that was a second away from falling into my spam abyss and being missed made me realise that they don’t really care about the applicants at all, which made me glad not to be working with them. I was expecting a courtesy phone call, but it appears we are not even worthy of that!
Oh well, I got four orders overnight and they’re flowing in this season at a ridiculous rate that I wouldn’t have had time for TV anyway whilst I am building my empire! Thanks to everyone who has supported me this year in purchases, advice and everything else. I promise that next year PennyDog will be going off with a bang- it’s only 54 weeks to my 25th birthday and I plan to be completely self-employed by then, without any TV shortcuts- it will be all my own work and only then I will feel truly proud of what I have achieved! And yes, I do have a plan in place!
Oh and since I haven’t done a Make for a while, here’s week 47 (yes, with the Christmas rush I am falling behind a little!), my ode to Mighty Boosh- the Future Sailor necklace. OH says I should send one to Noel Fielding… If you want one there’s the 20% discount code on the previous post!
PennyDog Patchwork (and illustration, recipes, other crafts...) 
Failure never tasted so good….
I didn’t blog about this before because I was still in the audition stages, but I am now able to talk about it.
I went for an audition for a new BBC1 show called “New Brands” after my application form was accepted. It’s sort of an after-Dragons-Den style programme where you get to pitch to a high street store and make your business big and successful. I felt I was in quite an exclusive club at this point and excited because I thought it was quite an exclusive thing to get through to the interview stage. Apparently not. After a long and expensive trip to Manchester and booking a day off work, it turns out there would have been 50 people auditioning on the same day, plus other auditions going on before and after mine on other days. Suddenly it felt less exclusive.
I was cheered up though that I thought I gave some great answers to the questions, and I had a better product than the examples I had sent over, the process lends itself to batch manufacturer and the programme was to be hosted by Jo Malone, who started off in the handmade market herself, so would be sympathetic to my craft. Today I got an e-mail that had clearly been torn apart by my spam filter as it had 10,000 garbled characters before the line, “You have been unsuccessful”.
At this point you’d think I would be overwhelmingly disappointed, but I think I had believed I would fail all along. The odds were stacked against me and I realised this before I did my piece to camera. Most other people were demonstrating a food product, or were design students and I somehow didn’t fit in with my lack of formal training and general household items. And getting a mass e-mail that was a second away from falling into my spam abyss and being missed made me realise that they don’t really care about the applicants at all, which made me glad not to be working with them. I was expecting a courtesy phone call, but it appears we are not even worthy of that!
Oh well, I got four orders overnight and they’re flowing in this season at a ridiculous rate that I wouldn’t have had time for TV anyway whilst I am building my empire! Thanks to everyone who has supported me this year in purchases, advice and everything else. I promise that next year PennyDog will be going off with a bang- it’s only 54 weeks to my 25th birthday and I plan to be completely self-employed by then, without any TV shortcuts- it will be all my own work and only then I will feel truly proud of what I have achieved! And yes, I do have a plan in place!
Oh and since I haven’t done a Make for a while, here’s week 47 (yes, with the Christmas rush I am falling behind a little!), my ode to Mighty Boosh- the Future Sailor necklace. OH says I should send one to Noel Fielding… If you want one there’s the 20% discount code on the previous post!